One month after an arson attack on a historic Israeli church, Jewish suspects have been arrested - and rabbis are raising money to refurbish the church.

On Sunday, Israeli police arrested three Jewish men suspected of torching and daubing Hebrew graffiti on the Church of the Multiplication in the Galilee, where Jesus is said to have fed 5,000 people.

The arrests mark a significant step forward in the investigation, which is being conducted amid heavy international pressure - including from the Vatican - to solve the case and deter other anti-Christian attacks.

As the police continue their investigation, a group of rabbis is engaged in a campaign to restore the church to its former glory - and send a strong message to Israeli society.

Alon Goshen-Gottstein, a London-born, Orthodox-ordained rabbi, has started a crowdfunding campaign for restoration "out of urgency and frustration" - and recruited Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein to become the first donor. So far, he has raised 80 per cent of his £8,500 target.

The campaign has attracted support in Orthodox circles beyond the liberal Orthodox camp that tends to support interfaith initiatives.

Nachum Rabinowitz, head of the main yeshivah in the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim and an icon of the Israeli settler-right, has thrown his weight behind it - followed by many other rabbis.

Rabbi Goshen-Gottstein, director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute, said: "Condemnation of the attack alone is trite - it doesn't deliver a message that is strong enough."

He hopes that Christians will feel Jewish friendship as a result of the campaign, and that Jews will begin to question the view held by some rabbinic authorities that "idolatrous" Christians should be shunned.

The news of Orthodox rabbis helping to rebuild the church will, he said, move this conversation forward.